Archimylacris

Taxobox
name = "Archimylacris"
status = fossil
fossil_range = Carboniferous
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Arthropoda
classis = Insecta
ordo = Blattoptera
genus = "Archimylacris"

"Archimylacris" is an extinct genus of cockroach-like Blattopterans, a group of insects ancestral to cockroaches, mantids and termites.

Archimylacris lived on the warm swampy forest floors of North America and Europe 300 million years ago, in the Late Carboniferous times. Like modern cockroaches, this insect had a large head shield with long curved antennae, or feelers, and folded wings. To a modern observer, it would likely appear as a giant cockroach with a "tail" (an ovipositor) in the females. Presumably their habits would be cockroach-like too, scurrying along the undergrowth eating anything edible, possibly falling prey to amphibians and very early reptiles.